Final answer:
Jean Baptiste de Lamarck suggested that organisms could pass on traits acquired in their lifetime to their offspring, a concept known as the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Although discredited, his ideas were foundational to evolutionary biology.
Step-by-step explanation:
Jean Baptiste de Lamarck was responsible for the idea now referred to as the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
Lamarck theorized that changes in an organism during its lifetime due to environmental influence or the use or disuse of certain body parts could be passed down to the next generation, thereby driving evolutionary change within a species.
While these ideas were later discredited in light of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, Lamarck's thoughts did provide a foundation for early evolutionary thinking and are acknowledged for their historic significance in the field of biology.